Critical Reasoning

Hi, there. I'm happy to give my 2¢ on this.

This is an unusual prompt, and somewhat atypical for the real GMAT. Doctor A is making assertions without any basis, and dogmatically continuing to cling to them despite sound evidence to the contrary.

First, he says, "The new influenza vaccine is useless at best and possibly dangerous. I would never use it on a patient." We are given no indication of how he arrived at that position, or of the nature of the evidence that he found persuasive. All we have is his opinion.

Dr. B cites journal articles, which are reasonably authoritative in scientific literature.

Dr. A then summarily dismisses them, and re-asserts his opinion, again without any evidence.

Any reasoning that contains any evidence or any semblance of an argument is not like Dr. A's reasoning.

Of the answer choices, only [spoiler](C)[/spoiler] makes a bald assertion unsupported by any evidence. Every other answer presents some form of argument, not simply a conclusion held rigidly in the absence of evidence. That's why I would argue C is the answer.

I don't know that I've seen a legitimate GMAT CR question present not an argument but simply a bald assertion, and ask for analogous reasoning. Here's a more traditional GMAT CR question, for practice:

https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/1248

Does all that make sense? Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mike

Dear pappueshwar

The black spots over answers are "spoilers" --- they are there so that someone who wants to think through the problem on her own can do so without seeing the OA.

Theoretically, all you need to do is hold your mouse/cursor over the black spot in order to be able to read it. The black spot vanishes with mouse-over. That's the way it's supposed to work.

Let me know if that doesn't work.

Mike